Romanticize Your Life
You wake up on a Monday morning and rush to get dressed. You’ve got a meeting to attend in less than an hour and the alarm didn’t go off. This meeting could change your entire career, your entire life as you know it.
You’ve been working up to this moment for years now. This could be your big break. You wear your best suit and put on the expensive perfume you’ve been saving. You went shopping the other day and bought a new designer bag and matching heels. This is your vision and it could be coming to life.
However, you skip breakfast and rush out the door. A million thoughts fill your mind as you head out the door. Will they like you? How will they react to your proposal? Do you bring enough to the table? Do you have what it takes for this next step? Suddenly that excitement is filled with self-doubt. You push your thoughts aside and begin the very long drive to the biggest event in your adult life. You build your self-confidence back up and practice your pitch as you try and relax to the music playing on the radio.
You head upstairs to the board room and patiently wait for the others to arrive. The executives arrive in order, then your colleagues. You deliver your pitch and before you know it, it’s over. The moment you’ve been waiting for years has come and gone in moments and you rushed through it all. This is when it strikes you, you weren’t living in the moment. You had rushed to the future and forgot to enjoy the present. You weren’t present in these crucial moments as the anxiety had taken over, distracting you from the present.
This is a scenario that is quite common in today’s society. Most are lost in trying to acquire the biggest and best things, be it a promotion at work or the vacation they had been planning for months. However, the moment is often lost in the chaos of the busy mind. Moments leading up to these bigger occasions are lost to time. Instead of being the main character of your story, you get lost in your thoughts and become a supporting character in someone else’s story.
However, the bigger question to ask is; How does one begin to write their own story? How does one romanticize life in this fast-paced life?
To answer these questions, we’ll have to travel back in time to your childhood. Children are the purest forms of human life. They are innocent and have little knowledge of what lies ahead. They know what they want at the moment and ask for it at the moment. As one grows older, these wishes only increase as one looks to the future. However, a child knows he/she wants that toy at the moment and plays with it at the moment. Once the moment has passed, it moves on to the next thing. As an adult, instead of enjoying the present, one’s constant focus is the next big thing.
Having a vision for oneself is important. However, day-to-day moments leading up to the vision of the life you want for yourself make it even more special. Losing oneself in work is a recipe for life left unlived. Taking breaks from life, be it sipping tea on the front porch or baking cookies on a Sunday morning with your siblings are moments you will remember as you age. Your life is a story, and you hold the pen. Every moment in your life should be as special as the next. Be it the good or the bad, they both work together to create the “you” you are today.
Instead of rushing through life, slow down your pace. Next time you eat breakfast, take the time to savor every bite you take. Next time you bake those chocolate chip muffins, add some extra chocolate chips and smell the aroma rise from the oven. Next time you pick up a book, take it one sentence at a time and lose yourself in the book. Next time you go on a walk, walk slower. Take the time to listen to the birds. Take your time to look at the flowers and feel the fresh breeze move through your hair.
